The Wanderer stood his ground, the black steel held ready. As the final group of recruits began their desperate charge, a long blast of the horn cut through the valley.
The sound signaled the end of the trial.
The Wanderer lowered his blade, his jaw tightening. He let out a sharp breath of frustration, the adrenaline having nowhere to go.
A sudden whistle of wind preceded a heavy thud. Valak dropped from the high ridge, landing with the force of a falling iron rod. The impact cratered the soft earth. The Sergeant jumped out of the hole he created, hands behind his back. He caught the look of lingering aggression in the Wanderer's eyes. "Don't feel down," Valak said. "The day isn't over yet."
The Wanderer offered a formal salute as the Sergeant paced past him toward the center of the field.
As the sun touched the horizon, the bedraggled recruits gathered. Mud-stained, bruised, and limping, they stood in ragged lines. Valak surveyed them with a predatory grin.
"To the winners," Valak barked, nodding toward the Wanderer’s group and the few others who had managed to kill a leader or steal a flag. "Congratulations. You are now officially cannon fodder. You’ve earned the right to begin your magic training. As for the rest of you losers. Physical drills start at dawn. If you can't hold a flag, you'll hold a mountain until your bones snap."
A wave of groans and sighs followed as the majority of the recruits were marched back toward the bunkers. Soon, only the small handful of "winners" remained in the deepening twilight.
Valak turned to them, his expression shifting from mocking to deadly serious.
"Now," he began, his voice dropping to a cold instruction tone. "We begin with basic mana circulation. Most of you think magic is a gift from the heavens. It isn't. It’s a parasite, and if you don't learn to cage it, it will eat you from the inside out."
He began to expand on the lessons he had briefly snarled at the Wanderer before throwing him into the beast’s cage months ago. He spoke of condensing mana in a circle around the heart.
"Close your eyes," Valak commanded. "Stop looking at the world with your sockets and start looking with your blood. You're looking for a pulse. Find the rhythm of your own heart, then find the heat that follows it. That heat is your mana. If it feels like a fire, you’re losing control. If it feels like ice, you’re empty. You want it to feel like a slow, heavy current of oil moving through your veins."
He walked through the small group, correcting postures with sharp kicks to the heels or shoves to the shoulders. When he reached the Wanderer, he lingered.
"Circulate," Valak whispered. "Move it from the core to the extremities and back. Do not let it settle in one place, or it will stagnate and rot the tissue."
"By now, you should feel the rings," Valak’s voice drifted through the silence. "The circles around your hearts. They are the measure of your birthright, your natural reservoir. One or two is the standard for a soldier. Three to five? You’re a genius destined for the high courts. But remember, this is only the starting line. Years of refinement can forge more, provided the heart doesn't burst first."
The Wanderer was struggling. This was the first time he had reached into his own depths since the incident with the war beast, and the interior of his soul was a storm.
He began to sweat, the droplets cold against his skin. He tried to force his mana and the lingering energy of the Blue Spiral into a single cohesive ring, but it refused to flow like the oil Valak described. To him, it felt like swallowing razors. The energy scraped against his ribs biting.
"Focus!" Valak’s voice barked right in his ear. The Sergeant had moved with impossible speed, looming over him. "Face your demons, soldier! Tame them or they’ll hollow you out!"
The world went dark. The camp, the recruits, and even Valak’s physical form vanished, replaced by a suffocating, silent void where the Sergeant’s words echoed like fading thunder.
Then, the Blue Spiral ignited.
It was a sun-sized vortex of celestial energy, spinning with a slow, terrifying majesty. A mechanical vibration went through the Wanderer’s marrow.
[VESSEL IS NOT YET PREPARED TO BEHOLD MAXIMUM ENERGY OUTPUT,] a voice resonated like playing an instrument to talk.
"The vessel?" the Wanderer shouted into the blue expanse. "Me?"
[USE THIS REALM’S PRIMITIVE METHODS TO MATURE,] the Spiral replied, its light pulsing in sync with the mechanical cadence. **[REACH FOR THE CORE ONLY ONCE THE FOUNDATION IS SET. INITIATING BREAK-POINT AUTOMATED SEQUENCES TO PREVENT DEVIATION FROM THE PRIME DIRECTIVE.]**
"What? What do you mean?"
[YOU WILL RECEIVE FRAGMENTS OF POWER ONCE THE VESSEL IS STABLE. PREPARING FIRST FRAGMENT TO CALIBRATE WITH LOCAL CONSTANTS... MAGIC WORLD CONFIRMED... SENDING MANA.]
The void fractured. The Wanderer was violently yanked back to reality, gasping for air. He felt Valak’s heavy hands on his shoulders, the Sergeant’s own mana surging into him to try and stabilize the collapse.
Inside his chest, a single circle began to form. But it didn't sit around the heart like a crown as it did for the others. The mana acted like a needle, puncturing the muscle of his heart and threading through the organ in a sharp, diagonal orbit.
The Wanderer braced for the agony of a ruptured heart, yet there was no blood, no scream of dying nerves. There was only a cold, structural stability.
Valak’s hands tensed. His eyes widened as he sensed the unnatural path the energy was taking, an unnatural course that defied the laws of Draemiran magic craft.
"What in the world are you?" Valak whispered, his voice uncharacteristically thin.
The energy finally settled, the razor-sharp friction smoothing into a steady circle.
Valak stared at him for a long moment, his brow furrowed in deep hesitation. "One circle," he finally grunted, though the way he said it suggested he didn't believe his own assessment.
He shook off the unease, dismissing the incident with a sharp wave of his hand and moved on to the next soldier.
The other recruits began to discover their own limits. Most had the light of one or two rings. A couple of the sturdier men managed to solidify a third, their faces looked exhausted by the effort.
But it was Kuma who drew the eyes of everyone standing. Five steady, shimmering circles rotated around his heart, perfectly symmetrical and radiant as Valak described.
His skin took on a soft, translucent glow, his expression one of serene clarity as if he had transitioned from a terrified survivor to a vessel of pure light in a single day.
Valak gave an impressed nod toward Kuma before turning back to the group.
"Now for the real trial: the war beast’s cage. You will enter and maintain your circulation. If your flow flickers, if your focus breaks for even a second, those beasts will smell the weakness. They prey on fear and uncontrolled mana."
He began to lead them toward the pits, then paused, looking back over his shoulder as if a sudden thought had struck him. He pointed a finger at the Wanderer. "And don't any of you try the stunt this idiot pulled. I’m not even sure he’s human."
As the recruits were marched toward the snarling shadows of the cages, Valak signaled the Wanderer to follow him into a different direction. He followed him away from the main group.
"You don't need to take the test again," Valak said, his voice dropping the parade-ground roar. "The beasts already know your scent."
"I wanted to say hi to them," the Wanderer replied, his hand resting to his side.
Valak stopped in his tracks, turning to look the Wanderer up and down. The unease from earlier hadn't left his eyes, but it was being replaced by something else. "I’m starting to think you’re one of them," Valak grumbled. "A stray monster that learned how to wear a uniform."
The Wanderer’s grin was sharp. "Maybe I am."
The challenge intent hung in the air. Valak reached up and unbuckled his heavy military jacket, letting the leather drop into the dirt. Flexing his giant scarred muscles.
Grinning back, Valak rolled his shoulders, the air around him beginning to distort with the sheer pressure of his own mana. "Let's find out what kind of beast you are."